Motorola has finally officially launched its much-leaked circular smartwatch, the Moto 360. Pricing has been set at $250 with a leather strap, and it goes on sale in the U.S. at noon today ET . If you want it with a silver or black metal strap, you’ll have to wait until sometime in the fall and pay $300 – or buy it today and add the metal strap later for $80 …
LG recently unveiled its latest smartwatch, the G Watch R. This is the first Android Wear device with a full circle display, because as some of you may know, the Moto 360 has a “flat tire” due to the sensors located at the bottom side of the face. The good news is, the G Watch R is just as premium as the Moto 360, and in my opinion, possibly better…
[protected-iframe id=”d2413f35ffadd16761e17906bca5b816-22427743-8994189″ info=”http://live.wsj.com/public/page/embed-AE726947_5DDB_4B94_BF47_DACBB7F3635A.html” width=”512″ height=”288″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]
Motorola is set to unveil a variety of new products tomorrow morning, but the Wall Street Journal posted its video review of the Moto 360 a tad too early, giving us a more in-depth look at the watch before its public unveiling tomorrow.
The LG G Watch R has been surrounded by a flurry of excitement, even in lieu of the fact that the much-hyped Moto 360 is supposed to be launching soon. And the timing is likely no coincidence, as following its official announcement last week, LG has come out today at IFA 2014 in Berlin with an official release date for its own upcoming round smartwatch (via The Wall Street Journal).
After several teasers over the last couple of weeks, ASUS has officially unveiled its Android Wear-powered ZenWatch. This sleek little smartwatch may be similar to other offerings on the market, but it’s refreshing to see something like this from ASUS…
As reported by Taiwanese publication Focus Taiwan, the CEO of Asus Jerry Shen has reportedly said in a media briefing that the company’s upcoming ZenWatch Android Wear-powered smartwatch will indeed be shipping at a price point below $200. Shen also mentioned that—as expected considering the device runs Android Wear—we’ll be seeing English-enabled voice recognition when the device goes on sale in October.
Renderings of Sony’s new SmartWatch 3 and SmartBand Talk
IFA 2014 is right around the corner and we’re expecting to see quite a bit of tech launched during the show. Sony is in attendance this year and their official press event is scheduled to happen on on Sept. 4th, 2014. Sources familiar with Sony’s plans have informed us that we can expect two new wearables to launch next week at IFA 2014…
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kajjMuZx8nY]
It’s no great surprise that Sony is now teasing three new Xperia 3 devices in a short video on its YouTube channel, pointing to their official announcement at the IFA next week …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Following in the footsteps of LG revealing its circular G Watch R, Samsung just moments ago announced its new Gear S smartwatch with a curved 2-inch Super AMOLED display, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth, enhanced multi-sensors, built-in GPS and more. The smartwatch will be available through retail stores and carriers in October.
Samsung’s Gear S should serve as competition for the all-new circular LG G Watch R and Moto 360. A big difference, however, is that the Gear S is not an Android Wear device. Instead, it runs a version of Samsung’s own open-source, standards-based operating system Tizen.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Let’s be clear off the top: there is no Instagram for Android Wear. At least, not yet. But if you are curious what it might look like, interaction designer Aleksandar Nikcevic has created a beautiful mockup of what could be Instagram for Android Wear on a Moto 360 smartwatch.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Motorola is expected to finally unveil its circular Moto 360 smartwatch at a press event on September 4th. We already know a lot about the device, but two key details that are missing are the price and release date. This afternoon, however, the company announced that it is giving 20 people an early chance at winning a Moto 360.
ASUS recently teased its new smartwatch by showing off some renders and today the company is turning things up a notch by releasing a brief preview video of its new timepiece. At just over a half a minute long, the quickie trailer doesn’t show much, but it does reveal that the watch will be called the ZenWatch, completely removing our Transformer theory out of the equation.
An infographic posted by Samsung claims there are more than a thousand apps for its Galaxy Gear smartwatches (actually, it claims “more than a thousand of Gear Apps,” but we’ll gloss over that).
The number is presumably aimed at people like me, who still look at smartwatches in a somewhat bemused fashion, viewing them as a solution in search of a problem. “Look at all the things they can do,” is the message here.
I don’t doubt the number, but quantity of apps doesn’t tell us much about their usefulness – and when Samsung chooses to lead its top five recommended apps with one that measures how much water we’re drinking, I have to say that does nothing to persuade me that the devices are so far little more than a novelty …
Last week ASUS confirmed that it will unveil its new smartwatch on September 3rd at IFA in Berlin, and today the company shared a glimpse of what we can expect to see next week. Taking to its official Facebook page, the Taiwanese electronics maker posted sketches of of its forthcoming smartwatch. Accompanied by a quote from Khalil Gibran, that was used last week to announce the device’s IFA event, the image’s text reads: “Time has been transformed, and we have changed.”
Motorola and LG aren’t the only ones working on a smartwatch with a round face, Samsung is also in the process of developing a next-gen timepiece with a more traditional appearance. According to the folks at SamMobile, the South Korean electronics manufacturer is gearing up for the release of a new round smartwatch with cellular connectivity.
Whether or not it was truly an accident is up for debate, but it appears that Sony has just shown off a couple of new devices in some promotional materials posted to the company’s Facebook page. As you might expect, the photo has of course already been pulled (which means there’s almost surely something here we shouldn’t know about yet).
[tweet https://twitter.com/ASUS/status/501668895074181120/]
ASUS has officially confirmed that it will be unveiling its Android Wear smartwatch at the IFA next month, with a teaser tweet showing a smartwatch face displaying the quote “Time has been transformed and we have changed” …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Android Wear is definitely getting a lot of attention over in Mountain View, and the company behind what has easily become the current top-dog smartwatch platform is now trying to make it even more clear why you need Android on your wrist. The LG G Watch and the Samsung Galaxy Gear are already out and making waves in the industry, and with the Moto 360 not far off—and presumably the competition as well–it seems as if Google is now ready to make sure you’re aware of all the great things Wear can do for you.
LG’s G Watch and Samsung’s Gear Live
When Google unveiled Android Wear, it said that ASUS was among the partners signed up to release a wearable device, but since then, both companies have been quiet on the matter. In June, rumors started circulating that ASUS was working on a smartwatch that would be low-cost and appealing to consumers. Now, according to quotes from Focus Taiwan, ASUS may launch its Android Wear device as soon as next month at IFA next month.
ASUS CEO Jerry Shen told an investors’ conference Tuesday that his company could debut its smartwatch as early as September at the IFA electronics trade show in Germany, with aggressive marketing efforts to promote the device.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/CZrGDo9Grgk]
Google has just posted four new Google Wear ads to its YouTube channel that show off the device in every day situations. Compared with the mostly technical videos Google has posted for its Android Wear wearables platform thus far, the commercials look a lot more like TV spots aimed at regular consumers.
Samsung and Apple will largely own the smartwatch market between them, predicts Jackdaw Research chief analyst Jan Dawson in a report being issued later today and seen by Re/code.
Dawson said that new players should “stay out of the market,” and existing players should scale back their plans.
“We do not recommend that existing vendors should maintain current levels of investment when market growth and the overall revenue opportunity remain poor,” Dawson said. “It is unlikely that more than one or two small vendors will be able to make a sustainable business out of smartwatches in the face of competition from Samsung and […] Apple” …
This is what the Moto 360 wireless charging dock looks like, according to Italian site Gadget.net – and it certainly looks persuasively real. Assuming you can choose to show the time as well as the charge state, the dock effectively turns the smartwatch into a bedside clock while it’s charging overnight.
The blue circle around the outside of the watch face shows the charge level. Looking at the rear of the dock, we can’t see any detail, but it’s likely that it’s some kind of USB connector …
Expand
Expanding
Close
The great smartwatch boom is starting to consume electronic makers and HP is not exempt. The company is partnering with designer Michael Bastian to produce its own next-gen timepiece. Unlike the latest wave of smartwatches from LG, Samsung and Motorola, Hewlett-Packard’s timekeeper won’t be based on Android Wear and will instead be a compatible companion for Android and iOS smartphones.
BGR.in today received some interesting information about the rumored smartwatch by OnePlus. In case you haven’t heard of them, OnePlus is a company that sells the OnePlus One smartphone (our review here), which boasts a 5.5″ 1080P display, 2.5GHz SnapDragon 801, 3GB of RAM, 64GB of on-board storage, and other top-tier features for the low-range price of $349 off contract. Their “invite only” system spawned a polarizing response from their most dedicated fans, as OnePlus required anyone who wanted the phone to be “invited” to purchase it.
